178. Looks Like Unrelated But The Same - Louise Paciarello And The Ladies Of Brownsville

Sometimes when researching a case, Melissa discovers threads that lead her in multiple directions.  Every once in a while one of those threads leads to a clue in the case she’s investigating.  But other times, they lead to cases clearly unrelated – but eerily similar – to the matter at hand.  This week’s episode brings together two such cases.  The cold case Melissa started researching involves the mysterious – actually downright strange – 2007 death of 78 year-old Louise Paciarello, a retired nurse’s aide who was a beloved neighbor and friend in her Yonkers, New York building and surrounding neighborhood.  Tiny, frail and lovely, Louise by all accounts had no enemies.  Yet for some time before her apartment was set fire by someone who had first strangled her, she had told friends some very troubling – and weird – stories.  She showed several friends a note, written on a napkin, from someone who wrote they’d been in the apartment while she slept – and even though she wouldn’t say who the note was from, expressed terrible concern that the writer knew where she kept her money.  She also claimed, just days prior to her murder, that she’d heard someone jiggling the doorknob of her newly re-keyed front door.  Spooky business – and no one has been arrested, whole thing got Melissa to wondering – who would do this to an elderly lady? How does one earn the trust of someone like Louise Paciarello?  And that bit of wondering led Melissa 28 miles south of Yonkers to the Brooklyn New York neighborhood of Brownsville, where just last month (January 2021) the arrest of one Kevin Gavin was announced by the NYPD. Gavin has been charged in the murder of Juanita (“Jenny”) Caballero on January 15, 2021 – but subsequently confessed to two other murders, in 2015 and 2019.  All three victims were female, all elderly and all residents of the same New York City Housing Authority apartment building.  Turns out Gavin did odd jobs for all three of his victims – which is why they likely trusted him enough to let him into their apartments.  He claims he killed all three women because of disputes over money.  But that doesn’t seem reasonable when one considers that each of Gavin’s victims were murdered in very different ways – all of which speak “serial killer” more than they do “where’s my money?”  Listen in as Melissa puzzles over these two places in such close proximity, focuses on the similarities of how four innocent elderly women were murdered and ponders the nature of those who would take advantage of the weakest and most kindhearted among us.